Kristen R. Hamilton
Kristen is responsible for managing EDI’s Joliet Office and support for the administration of the civil engineering department, including proposal work, contract review, negotiation and generation, project estimating, and coordinating workload and scheduling meetings on a weekly and sometimes daily basis.
She has a strong background in course instruction and presentation preparation and delivery both from community college teaching experience and multiple stakeholder training program delivery for the Illinois Tollway. As a long-time business owner of a professional services firm, she has firsthand experience with the business licensing, registration, certification and prequalification requirements needed to work with state agencies and other municipalities.
In 2013, Kristen managed the proposal and subsequent award of the single largest contract in HCE history: Tollway PSB 13-1 Item 23, Construction Management, Systemwide, for Documentation Compliance, a $7.1 million, five-year project for the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority. Kristen was the Project Manager for the multi-assignment project, including her critical assignment as on-site staff support for ISTHA’s Department of Diversity and Strategic Development, reporting to both the Chief of Diversity and the Chief of Engineering and her management of three subconsultants.
In 2019, ISTHA selected the same team for the follow-up contract, Diversity Compliance Consultant Services, a $6.99 million, three-year contract to continue the documentation compliance work for ISTHA’s Department of Diversity and Strategic Development and provide some additional diversity management services. Under the new contract, Kristen managed seven subconsultants until work was suspended by the client in 2020.
In addition to construction and engineering knowledge, Kristen has significant system/process design and definition responsibilities plus data tracking, management and reporting duties. These system management capabilities can be directly applied to other government agency projects, especially task-order-based and extension-of-agency contracts.
Kristen’s previous professional experience also includes departmental/division management and project management responsibilities at two other companies. These responsibilities encompassed both technical project development with a specialization in military specification and contract compliance, and management of professional and manufacturing staff support for production. This combination of real-world technical and management experience honed her skills to lead a professional engineering firm from company management to the addition of client services that utilize her engineering, compliance and planning skills.